Chinese enterprises spent more than 1.37 trillion yuan on R&D last year, up 13.1 percent from 2016, while R&D spending at government institutions and colleges increased 7 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively.

Some 92 billion yuan, or 5.3 percent of the total spending, was put into fundamental research in 2017, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier, the NBS said.

According to the 13th five-year plan for national science and technology talent development (2016-2020), China will increase its annual per capita spending on R&D to 500,000 yuan by 2020, up from 370,000 yuan in 2014.

China had 5.35 million people working in R&D at the end of 2015, the world’s largest pool of R&D personnel.